Is There a Reason Why Conjruers and White Mages Don't Use Water Spells?

[Dikatis]

I already know the Doylist reason is that the devs slimmed down the healer offensive tools in the name of balance.

But I was having a conversation with a bunch of other people who INSIST that the Sixth Umbral Calamity somehow discouraged the use of water magic by conjurers at Stillglade Fane. I know this is inherently false because water is a regular element used by conjurers (even if it's not reflected in the playable toolkit nearly as much).

But why don't conjurers regularly use water for offense? We have Water, Water III, and Water IV spells used by enemies, so why doesn't say, Kan-E or Raya-O use them?

[klykodesh]

Mostly that they were taken from Geomancer

[Cleretic]

They literally did used to have water-themed spells, I think the longest-standing one was Fluid Aura, it's just that they were gradually pruned off of the toolkit because they didn't really make gameplay sense. Back in 1.0 Conjurers had access to every single element because that was their 'thing', including Water (Thaumaturges instead got light and darkness magic), but come ARR they realized a heavy focus on elemental damage didn't really work for the game they were making. 'Conjurers don't use water magic because something something Sixth Calamity' is just pure headcanon, and it's not even headcanon that has a long memory for exactly that reason.

As for why no NPC conjurers use water spells in-game, outside of the mechanical reason? Well... they've mastered magically hucking rocks, controlling the wind and healing wounds; practically speaking, what is water magic going to do for them that they can't already cover?

[MikkoAkure]

But I was having a conversation with a bunch of other people who INSIST that the Sixth Umbral Calamity somehow discouraged the use of water magic by conjurers at Stillglade Fane.

This is another one of those lore "facts" that were made up by the community and seem to spread despite having nothing related to it in the source material.

White Mage got a new water spell as of EW: Aquaveil. It may not be an offensive spell but it's still water. And as Cleretic said, there used to be Fluid Aura which used to deal damage and knockback, then was just knockback, then it was removed because it served absolutely no purpose. There was even a whole CNJ quest that revolved around using it on a water elemental to heal a spot of miasma and commune with the power of water.

[WhiteArchmage]

It used to be that the healing spells had (and still do somewhat) a water effect that was a headcanon-y way to claim those were our "water" spells, but it seems like SE just hates water magic in particular since it's also absent from RDM's toolkit (alongside blizzard for some reason).

Now, SE has somewhat paradoxically diminished and reinforced WHM's identity as the "Nature Mage" by replacing their usual CNJ spells with more light-aligned ones with seemingly no Lore-explanation, yet at the same time introducing the lily system and the flower-y looking bell (and aquaveil), which makes me wonder if they regret turning CNJ into White Mage and trying to fit WHM's "Holy Mage" identity with CNJ's more "Geomancer" one.

[Dikatis]

As for why no NPC conjurers use water spells in-game, outside of the mechanical reason? Well... they've mastered magically hucking rocks, controlling the wind and healing wounds; practically speaking, what is water magic going to do for them that they can't already cover?

Water is the great eroder. If compressed and focused, it can cut through things with tremendous speed and power. Not to mention the displacement and area denial effects of triggering a flash flood on command with Water III. As shown by Leviathan, water can possess crushing force and be used as a powerful defensive tool, as his Veil of the Whorl can reflect cannonballs if his magic isn't disrupted by specialized tools. Even then, his head reflects arrows and guns while his tail reflects magic.

[Cleretic]

Water is the great eroder. If compressed and focused, it can cut through things with tremendous speed and power. Not to mention the displacement and area denial effects of triggering a flash flood on command with Water III. As shown by Leviathan, water can possess crushing force and be used as a powerful defensive tool, as his Veil of the Whorl can reflect cannonballs if his magic isn't disrupted by specialized tools. Even then, his head reflects arrows and guns while his tail reflects magic.

Well, a lot of that's either easily covered by what they can do (pretty sure a boulder can crush pretty hard), or of really specific need that's not really gonna come up in situations like short-warning combat (I don't think the cutting force of water is gonna do you a massive amount when a treant's bearing down on you). Water's defensive options are... honestly not something I completely buy on a physical level, but that's also literally what Aquaveil does (I don't play White Mage so I did forget that one, thanks Mikko). Aquaveil's really high-level, so maybe that's just really damn hard when you're not shortcutting the learning process with Blue Magic, and when they're literal healers it's probably just easier to patch things up afterwards if you can't get that right.

Despite not playing the job regularly, I have done its whole story fairly recently, and I can't think of a single situation where they were in a fight and water would've done more for them than just 'boulders and healing'. ...in fact, with a number of fights against animate trees and the like I can imagine water might've been a worse offensive option, if we assume that elemental weakensses and resistances still exist in-universe.

[IckeDerTyp]

Be like water, my friend~

[Shurrikhan]

Mostly that they were taken from Geomancer

Conjurer and Geomancers are the same archetype, just manifested in different cultures...

Both are shamanistic/druidic mediators of variably sentient elemental forces.

Originally, the game split casters into essentially two halves, the Priestly/Oracular/Divine with a focus on the rituals of man (Majutsu) and the Druidic/Shamanistic/Naturalistic with a focus on the innate channels of nature (Mahou). During that time, Conjurers had access to all of the natural elements (Wind, Earth, Water, Fire, Lightning and Ice), while Thaumaturges (at the time a support-capable caster, opposite Conjurer -- likewise a hybrid role, with no pure healers in the game) had access to Blood, Poison, Umbral and Astral.

As for why Conjurers had no Water spells for a time (until Aquaveil returned to replace Fluid Aura)... it's the same reason they don't have more than a single DoT: pruning/simplification.

Oh, that being said, all the basic CNJ heals are canonically water-affinitive.

[TheRealQuah]

WHM has plenty of Water spells?

Esuna, Benediction, Tetra, Divine Benison, Plenary Indulgence, Aquaveil, Lily Bell